Bonnie Prince Charlie's stone found in grandmother's rockery

The foot-wide stone was found by Hartlepool pensioner Connie Lofthouse, 79, after she recognised it from a programme charting its history and disappearance.

In 1989 it disappeared from a knoll near the Glenfinnan Monument at the head of Loch Shiel. There, on 17 August 1745, Bonnie Prince Charlie raised a 16ft-high standard on the stone to rally his troops to march on Edinburgh.

In 1990 Mrs Lofthouse was given the stone while living in Kentallen near Glencoe. Two years later she returned to north east England.